


Summer Solstice

by Tigerine (sealink)



Category: DRAMAtical Murder
Genre: Brotherhood, Gen, Hair Braiding, Sylvan AU
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2014-02-17
Updated: 2014-02-17
Packaged: 2018-01-12 20:20:21
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,988
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1198350
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/sealink/pseuds/Tigerine
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Twin boys, borne in strife and conflict, a war between the real and the unreal. An offering, made on the mirror surface of a lake. A trespass upon a pact between humans and fae; one brother cursed to wander, the other a prisoner of the forest lake and its glades. The fae-touched brothers can only meet each other a few times a year; this meeting is in summer, when the countryside is plush with flowers and the sun's rays reach golden fingers across the lake.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Summer Solstice

**Author's Note:**

> This is for Cymphonia, on the occasion of her birthday. I hope this meets with your approval.

“Stop, Aoba!” Sei shields himself from the curtain of water sweeping across the lake, laughing. His braid of long black hair is sopping wet. He tosses it back over his shoulder and reaches into the water, cupping his hand and dashing it across the surface, sending a wave in retaliation.

Aoba screeches playfully, swatting at the splashes. Bits of waterweed are stuck in his plaited hair and hang from his antlers’ prongs, but he has never been happier. His clothes, fashioned after the blue of cornflowers, linen, and the dark green leaves of summer, cling to his skin, soaked through. The solstice is upon them, and the afternoon heat has driven them into the silvery waters of Aoba’s lake for this, their only day together.

“Aoba, I said stop!” Sei hollers again as another wave of water swells towards him. He sputters and blows water from his lips, wiping the water out of his eyes. When he opens them, Aoba is there, a mischievous look in his eyes.

“I hardly ever get to play with anyone, brother,” he says with a grin. “Least of all someone who can play back!” And with that, Aoba leapt on Sei, submerging them both in the sun-warmed water. Sei grabs his brother’s foot and tugs down hard, pulling Aoba into the deep with him. A trout gives them an alarmed look and darts away into the gloom at their roughhousing. Aoba swims for the surface and when he breaks it, he is already laughing again.

Sei vaults up out of the water, standing on the surface, his white and silver tunic plastered to his skin. The motifs of stars and moons are written in gilt down his sleeves and he slings them at Aoba; they wrap around his forearms with a wet slap.

“Eh, are you done already?” Aoba can’t hide his disappointment.

“We’ve been playing in the water for an hour,” Sei replies, wringing out his braid, careful of his own bone-white antlers. “My fingers are starting to prune.”

Aoba lifts his hand and looks at his own fingers. “Mine are still good!”

Sei smiles, sunlight glinting off the mithril torc at his collarbone. “Well, of course. You are the same as the lake.”

Relenting, Aoba places his palms on the water surface and heaves himself up and out, sitting easily on the water. It’s second nature to him, this sort of interaction with the lake, and has been ever since he was a babe.

They tangle their hands together and walk to the sunken colonnade, to the altar where they’d been brought, together, decades ago. Sei smooths his hand over the stone thoughtfully as they pass it, the water slowly shallowing until they no longer need to walk across the surface. Their clothes are folded on the bank: Sei’s short coat, cape, boots, and belt. Aoba’s summer regalia is easy to miss; it nearly blends in with the grasses on which he’s lain it.

“Are you going to do it..?” Aoba asks Sei, a smile spreading over his face.

“Do you want me to?”

“You know I ask every time.”

Sei giggles, hiding his smile behind a thin, white hand. “Okay,” he says.

With a motion of his hand, Sei calls out a small gust, a wind that curls around them, stripping the lake water from their clothes and cooling their skin. Aoba laughs, holding out his arms so that the wind can dry him thoroughly. Sei unties his braid and his long hair, black and silken, rises in a column above his head. The zephyr threads through it lovingly, drying it fully, and then twists it gently in a small tornado. Aoba claps delightedly and Sei nods to the air, sending it capering off across the mere, disturbing the glassy surface.

“What do you want to do now?” Sei asks.

Aoba shrugs on his coat of cornflowers and alyssum, settling it on his shoulders. The blue compliments his golden eyes and seems nearly purple against the blue of his hair.  The flowers in his hair were lost in the lake, he realizes as he slips on his green shoes.

“Oh, Sei, you’re only here a few times a year,” Aoba protests. “We always do what I want to do.” Aoba steps closer to his brother. “You decide.”

Sei looks at Aoba thoughtfully and then leans forward, playfully knocking their antlers together.  His own set is greater than Aoba’s, curving above his head; a majestic crown for a sylvan king. In the evening, the glimmer of stars is cradled at some of the junctions of his antlers, providing enough light to see by.  “Let’s go to the meadow,” he says at last, and Aoba grins.

“Let’s, “ he replies, and they take hands again, walking away from the shore of the lake.

The meadow is as near to the heart of Aoba’s forest as the lake is, and at this time in the summer, it is a sea in the forest, silvery sedge and blue rye and glossy green grass. Flowers float like foam on the waves of wind whipping across the meadow. They walk toward the shade of a great oak on a small rise of ground, their hair dancing in the breeze.

Sei is the first to break their amiable silence. “I see your orchard has gotten bigger,” he says quietly.

“Yeah,” Aoba murmurs, looking at the small, scattered cherry trees growing near the far edge of the meadow.

“How many trees are there now?”

“Nearly a hundred.”

Sei shakes his head and then seats himself, leaning back against the oak with a sigh. “It’s not your fault, Aoba.”

Aoba sat down next to his brother, still looking off into the distance at his trees. “No, it’s not,” he replies, his voice almost carried away by the wind. “But that does not mean I do not mourn them.”

Sei reaches out to Aoba, sliding his hand over his brother’s sun-tanned cheek. “You are too good for this kind of life.”

Aoba pressed Sei’s hand against his face, his eyes sliding shut and a sigh of contentment escaping him. “I admit that I look forward to your visits the most, these days.” Opening his eyes, he reaches for Sei’s hair and Sei sits forward obediently, tossing his hair behind him. With an open palm pressed towards the earth, he quiets the wind so Aoba can work in peace.

Aoba takes out a comb from a pouch at his waist; it’s a tortoiseshell comb, brought by one of his supplicants and given in thanks when the lake accepted their offering. He keeps it wrapped in a scrap of brain-tanned leather. It’s still glossy and smooth, and it glides through Sei’s long black hair, tugging out the knots. Aoba braids Sei’s hair slowly, using his hands to gather each lock and make the braid tight.

“Almost done,” he says, focusing, and Sei lifts his hand up to his shoulder, the black leather thong curled up on itself from holding his braid for so many weeks. Aoba takes it, winding it around the lowest part of the braid, tucking the ends in and then giving his brother’s hair a playful tug.

“Hey, Aoba!” Sei reaches behind him and swats at his brother, catching him on the flank.

“Give, give!” Aoba laughs, trying to hold his brother’s hands at bay.

“You’d better!” Sei says.  “It’s your turn anyway. Turn around.”

Aoba shuffles around to put his back to his brother and offers up the comb over his shoulder. Sei’s fingers are nimbler than Aoba’s; he skillfully plaits his brother’s hair and winds the braids around each antler, tucking them in behind the base.

“We should get some flowers for your hair,” Sei muses out loud.

“And for yours,” Aoba adds. “You never get to wear flowers in your hair except when you’re here.”

Sei smiles weakly, getting to his feet. “C’mon. Let’s go find some.”

They range far over the meadow, Sei gathering Ithuriel’s spear and veronica and kitten’s tail, and Aoba plucking yellow daisies and buttercups and the occasional poppy. They sit lazily under the oak tree, resting and threading together their treasures. The crown that Sei weaves for Aoba is an explosion of deep blue and white, the azure of summer skies with a scattering of plump white clouds. The wreath that Aoba settles on Sei’s dark head is a golden halo, studded with the large blossoms of the poppy like gems in a coronet, all the brighter for its proximity to the twinkling of Sei’s black eyes.

By the time they are finished, the sun’s rays, even on this, the longest day of the year, are growing weak. They walk together, hand in hand, back to the lake, away from the long shadows of the cherry trees at sunset. They are met on their walk back by the witch, Tae. Sei does not trust her very much, but given the nature of his curse, he does not trust anyone very much.

“Aoba,” the witch says, with a nod to Sei.

“Granny,” Aoba says, nodding his head in acknowledgment.

“It is the solstice tonight,” Tae proclaims, her arms held out. “As such, I would like to offer you a meal at my table.”

Aoba smiles graciously and looks up at Sei. “Shall we, Sei?”

Sei looks uncertainly at the witch and then smiles at Aoba. “If you want to,” he replies vaguely.

“Come now, Sei. You will need your strength for tomorrow,” Tae says kindly. “There is no stag meat at my table tonight or any night.”

Sei’s hand tightens around Aoba’s as his smile widens. “Then I’d be happy to join you.”

The sylphs chafe at being indoors at first; when you are used to the forest as your bower and the heavens as your ceiling, any house, no matter how fine, feels too small.

She gifts them with talismans—small and quaint next to their power, but even spirits of the forest and the air might find them to be useful. For Sei, a charm against wolves. For Aoba, a charm to ease a troubled heart. Tae watches them accept these charms and carefully measures the gratitude she has earned. For Sei, his is a great boon; he hangs the wolf’s tooth from the torc around his neck, where the starsilver will amplify its power. For Aoba, it is a reminder of his purpose here, as an instrument for the mere’s latent power, born from the fragmented, primal wills of long-dead fae that sleep on the lake’s dark bottom.

They make merry that night by the fire in the witch’s hut, eating fish stew and small water plants from the edge of the lake. Tae asks for their blessing on her cauldron, on her chalice, and her house. In the spirit of the solstice, they gladly give it, touching her tools with air and water and power far greater than that of her hedge-magic.

The witch offers them her bed for the night, sleeping in the cot she keeps for those who seek her aid or travelers who arrive at the lake to make supplications to Aoba and the dead fae. The brothers pile into her goose down bed, careful of their antlers on her pillows. They hang their flower crowns from the rafters to dry.  Strands of their hair caught in the leaves will make powerful additions to Tae’s craft, but they are not concerned with her magic. They cling to each other despite the lingering heat in the night.

With the first rays of the sun, the White Stag must flee again, doomed by his curse to endlessly run. His golden brother will go back to tending the desires of men who seek boons from the mere. But for now, they sleep, tangled up in each other’s arms, the breath of summer in their lungs, dreaming of a future when one might leave and the other might stay.


End file.
